Step 110–15 minutes
What Is a Program?
At its simplest, a program is a sequence of instructions that tells a computer what to do. Before a program runs, it exists as a file on your storage (like a hard drive or SSD).
When you "run" a program, the computer performs a series of steps to turn those stored instructions into active work.
Program Lifecycle
1. Program File
(On Disk)
(On Disk)
2. Loaded
(Into RAM)
(Into RAM)
3. Executing
(By CPU)
(By CPU)
Code vs Data
Programs consist of two main parts: Code (the instructions) and Data (the numbers, text, and values the code works with).
Compiled vs Interpreted
Some programs are translated to machine code ahead of time (Compiled), while others are translated on the fly as they run (Interpreted).